In the summer of 1797, on Broadway near St. Paul’s Church in Manhattan, New York, Deputy Sheriff Robert Berwick, a male law officer, set out to do a routine and dangerous part of the job: serve a writ on a man named John Young and escort him toward a jailhouse so bail could be arranged. The task put them shoulder to shoulder in the open street, close enough for a sudden decision to become a death sentence.
As they walked, Young produced a pistol and fired a shot into Berwick’s chest.
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